Children's Books in K6
Bargain Books in K7
Room K6 in the K wing (see
map) has children's books, including picture books,
school age fiction, award winners and books for parents and teachers,
many for under $1. Room K7 next door is the bargain room, where paperbacks
are 50 cents, hardcovers
are $1.00, and children's books are just 25 cents each. Pay just half of that in the bargain room after 12:30 pm on
Saturday and all day on Sunday. On Sunday, you can also buy grocery
bags in the bargain room for $5 and fill them with books.

Main Book Room Sale
In our main room,
prices are also way below what used book stores charge.
Paperbacks are 50 cents and up, and hardcovers are $1.00 and up. This
room opens at 11 am on Saturday (one hour after the other rooms), but you can
reserve your place in the line that forms by picking up one or two tickets as early as 8 am.
No ticket is needed to get in.

The architects for the Children's Library project have worked out how to
add even more space to the 65-year old building. Originally, the
project hoped to enlarge the library by 2,250 square feet by adding wings on
both ends. The architect's plans, now 65% complete, show that the new
wings will actually add about 2,660 square feet, 410 more than originally
projected. This means the library will be expanding overall by about
73%, a welcome improvement for the cramped branch.

Libraries Close May 30 for Memorial Day

All Palo Alto City
libraries will be closed on Monday, May 30 for the Memorial
Day holiday.

Suggestions?

We're always eager to hear your suggestions for ways to
improve our book sale. Please email them to us at suggestions@friendspaloaltolib.org
or mention them to a volunteer at the sale.

Outdoor Poster Sale

This month's sale features all kinds of posters, which you'll find for sale
outside our main room. We have scores and scores of wonderful movie
posters,
art prints, old travel posters, and reprints of old advertisements.
Our prices are very low too, with posters starting at just 25 cents.

Top 10 Things Overheard at the April Booksale

Here are the top ten things overheard at last month's sale:

10. Yeah, I got here late .. around 5 am.9. 308133? I'm 308132.
Nice to meet you.8. Only fifty cents? Are you sure?
7. Hey look, I donated that book just last week.6. Can I rent a truck around here? I
think I'm going to need one.5. What do you mean you're closing? I
still have another 20,000 books to look at.4. So what exactly
is ephemera?
3. Yes, I do need a receipt. Otherwise no one will believe how little
I paid. 2. Don't worry, I have a whole warehouse I'm filling with books
from here.

And the number one thing overheard at the April booksale:

1. Another two rooms? Oh my gosh!

Library Laptops Provide More than
Internet

You won't have to wait so long to get on a computer at the Main and
Mitchell Park branches anymore, thanks to the Cable Co-op Legacy Grant to
the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. Since neither building had room
for more tables to put computers on, we instead provided seven laptop
computers at each branch, which you can use anywhere within the libraries.
You can even take the computers outside into the patios when it's not
raining. The IBM laptops connect to the Internet via high-speed
wireless, so you can browse and use the web as fast as ever. The
laptops also provide some other features, including:

The City of Palo Alto
faces a $5.2 million shortfall for the fiscal year starting
July 1. At preliminary budget discussions held on Tuesday, May 10, the
city proposed to make no
service cuts to the libraries, so hours, staffing, and
funding for collections will remain the same. However, the library
will lose one open librarian position that had not been filled due to the
current hiring freeze and will not purchase some research materials that are available online anyway.
Other City departments are expected to undergo more severe cuts. See the
proposed library budget and the
overall city budget.

Salinas Libraries Still Need Help

Although the city of Salinas recently managed to raise enough money to
avert complete library closures (see
news article), the agricultural community of 151,000 is still struggling to
finance its libraries. The funds raised so far will keep the city's
libraries open only one day a week.

Several members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library have asked how they can
help out. We recommend that you make contributions to the Rally Salinas
Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, the same fund supported by
actor Bill Murray and many others. If you
donate online, be
sure to specify in the appropriate box that your contribution is for the Rally Salinas Fund.
You can also mail a check to the Rally Salinas Fund at the Community Foundation for
Monterey County, 945 South Main, Suite 205, Salinas, CA 93901. Contributions to Rally Salinas are tax-deductible.

Book Group Picks Year of Titles

Here's what our book group will be reading for the next year, as chosen
at their April meeting. The group
meets at 7:30 pm on the second Thursday of every month at the Lucie Stern
Community Center Fireside Room at 1305 Middlefield Road. Click on any
title to read some reviews:

Long-time volunteers Tom and Ellen Wyman are being honored for their
commitment to the Palo Alto community on Sunday, May 22 by the Avenidas
Senior Center. Ellen Wyman is our previous president and Tom served on
the Library Advisory Commission for six years. Together, they ran the
Friends' booksale for seven years, during which time it grew eight-fold.

Along with six others, the Wymans will be feted at the Lifetimes of
Achievement 2005 ceremony from 2 to 4 pm at 450 Kingsley Avenue. Tickets are $65 each and may be purchased by calling Avenidas at 326-5362.

This notice comes to you from the non-profit organization
Friends of the Palo Alto Library. No trees were felled in the making of
this e-mail. While the Better Business Bureau recommends that no more
than 35% of a charitable organization's expenses be for management and
fundraising expenses, ours were only 4.3% for our 2003-2004 fiscal year. In other words,
about 96% of the
money we raised went to help Palo Alto Library users. Visit our web
site. Become a member
by joining online.

Be sure to receive your own free copy of this e-mail notice so that you'll know
about all special upcoming books sales. To sign up, just e-mail
us. We carefully protect the privacy of your e-mail address. We
will not share your e-mail address with any other organization and we will not
use it for any purpose other than to send you these notices. If you do not
wish to receive these e-mail notices in the future, please
reply with the words "Remove Me" in the subject line.